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Sunday, March 30, 2014

President of Community & Environmental Defense Services.
Represented MD DNR on the legislative subcommittee that drafted the original
Stormwater Management Act. Installed the first infiltration practices
retrofitted to an existing community in MD. Serves on the Chesapeake Bay
Program’s BMP Verification Panel.

Restoring the Bay is dependent upon
keeping thousands of Best Management Practices (BMPs) working. The
following article illustrates why this task cannot be accomplished without
a tremendous increase in public participation. It shows how even the most
dedicated agencies cannot cope with a tremendous workload. It also shows
how even the most Bay-knowledgeable among us are not aware of this need,
which speaks loudly to the need for better public education.

The 4th Street Rain GardenIn 2006, a Rain Garden was installed to treat runoff from
4th Street in Annapolis. Maintaining these highly-effective storm water
BMPs is pretty simple. Remove the mulch every few years,
scarify the soil surface beneath the mulch to keep infiltration high, put down
another 2-3 inches of seasoned hardwood mulch and ensure a 12-inch
depression remains to store runoff until it can soak down through the mulch and
soil layers. You can even do away with the mulch and allow vegetation to
cover the surface, provided the storage depression remains. Do
these simple things and you get 70% – 95% pollutant removalfrom all runoff entering the rain garden. And with a 12-inch
depression a Rain Garden can treat 90% of all the runoff from the half-acre or
so of streets and other impervious surfaces draining to the BMP.

Five Months & Counting BMP Still Not RepairedFor the first few years after
installation of the 4th Street Rain Garden volunteers took care of
maintenance. But somewhere along the line the City of Annapolis assumed
the maintenance responsibility.

I first saw the 4th Street Rain
Garden last November. I found it was in serious need of maintenance and
alerted City officials. The critical 12-inch surface storage
had dropped to zero along with pollutant removal. This storage
area holds the first inch of runoff from 4th Street until it can soak
down through the mulch and underlying soil. It is this downward movement
through mulch and soil where the 70-95% pollutant removal
occurs. With zero storage pollutant retention had dropped to zero as
well!

A month went by with no response
from the City. So I wrote to the City Manager which generated a pretty
quick response. A week later I received an email from the City stating
the Rain Garden had been cleaned. Yet when I looked at it a few days
later there was no change other than more mulch had been added. This
indicated the City personnel would benefit from additional education with
regard to BMP maintenance. I pointed this out to the City and was assured
repairs would be made once they located the plans for the facility.
Nevertheless, the City guaranteed that the facility would be fully restored
once warmer weather came.

I since obtained the plans from Jim
Urban who designed this very creative and very attractive facility.
As of March 16th - five months since I first began the effort to get the
Rain Garden repaired – it remains much as I first found it. During the
interim five months of polluted runoff have needlessly washed into Spa
Creek, the Severn River and the Chesapeake Bay because a couple hours
of work had not been performed.

Rain Garden Adjoins Offices of Leading Bay Restoration
Organizations Part of the irony is that the 4th
Street Rain Garden is located next to some of the leading organizations in
the Chesapeake Bay restoration effort, including the USEPA Chesapeake Bay
Program, the National Park Service, the Keith Campbell Foundation, the TKF
Foundation, and the Conservation Fund. By irony I mean that the employees
of these organizations are among the most knowledgeable and dedicated when it
comes to Bay restoration. In other words, these would be the first people
to look for problem BMPs had they been exposed to effective educational materials.
The fact that no one had contacted the City about this failing Rain Garden says
that existing education efforts are woefully inadequate.

No Villains Here; But A Strong Testament to an
Unmet Public Education NeedIt would be wrong to harshly criticize the City of Annapolis
for failing to maintain this and other BMPs. Until storm water fees
recently came into being, funds for BMP maintenance, training personnel and
other essential tasks were stretched incredibly thin.

It would also be wrong to point
fingers at Chesapeake Bay Program staff and others who probably lunch next to
this facility on nice days. If even these ultra-Bay conscious people
are not aware of how to identify and correct BMP maintenance problems, then
this, again, speaks volumes about the need to greatly expand
public education efforts.

Bay Restoration Success Doubtful Without Far Greater Public
ParticipationThe 4th Street Rain Garden is one of
about 100,000 storm water BMPs throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
These BMPs could be keeping a tremendous amount of pollution out of the
Bay. But indications are that a significant number have failed due to
poor maintenance, just like the 4th Street Rain Garden.

This problem is now assuming an even
greater level of urgency. We are about to see an explosion in the number
of Rain Garden type BMPs throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed. We are
counting on these BMPs to hold the line on nutrients and other pollutants from
new development. And new development is the only source of Bay pollution
which is still growing.

Today we lack the government
inspectors needed to keep existing BMPs well maintained. This task will
become even more impossible for government alone in the coming decades.
The only approach which may keep all these facilities working is
to vastly increase the number of volunteer eyes watching for BMP maintenance
needs and even performing routine repairs. This is something that can and
must be done by working cooperatively with BMP owners and government
agencies. In fact, the City of Annapolis said they’d be delighted to work
with volunteers interested in maintaining the 4th Street facility and other
BMPs.

Watershed Groups & Other Restoration Organizations Must Spread
the WordTo accomplish this task we must make
it clear to the public that restoration of the Chesapeake Bay and the waters
closest to their homes WILL NOThappen without their
active involvement. We must then ramp up our public education effort
and urge citizens to do something like Adopt-A-BMP.

The 200 plus watershed groups active
throughout the Bay system, along with the many other organizations active
in Bay restoration, need to repeat the following message to their members
and other segments of the public:

We can only restore the Bay and the
waters nearest your home with your active supportIt
is no longer enough to contribute dollars, write the occasional email or
sign a petition. Part of this more active support must include actions
such as checking out the BMPs which serve the supermarket where you
shop, the building where you work and the neighborhood you call home.

BMP Maintenance Easy & As Enjoyable As GardeningA sign should be erected next to each BMP
explaining the benefits it provides, how to determine if it needs maintenance
and who to call to report problems. The sign must also clearly state
the need for volunteers to lend a hand. Fortunately most BMP
maintenance is about as easy and fun as backyard gardening.